In August 2001, the Directorate of Acquisition Resources and Analysis in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) asked the RAND
Corporation to identify policy issues relevant to large service acquisitions that deserved closer attention in OSD. RAND agreed to examine a variety of new large acquisitions of different kinds of services in
different parts of the Department of Defense (DoD). Based on an
initial set of “pilot” case studies, RAND identified a tentative set of
policy issues that deserved OSD's attention. RAND briefed OSD on
these issues in December 2001. OSD asked RAND to fill out these
case studies with additional information and to expand the number of
acquisitions covered in the study to six to test the robustness of the
issues identified in the December briefing. In March 2002, OSD also
asked RAND to draw on interim findings to help OSD frame new
policy on “Acquisition of Services, ” as required by the Fiscal Year
2002 National Defense Authorization Act, Section 801.

This report documents the findings that resulted from these efforts. It uses six case studies to identify high-level policy issues for
which OSD is likely to become involved in large, innovative service
acquisitions as their use expands in DoD. It should interest analysts
and practitioners involved in the acquisition of defense services and,
more generally, in ongoing acquisition reform efforts in DoD.

The work was conducted in the Acquisition and Technology
Policy Program of RAND National Defense Research Institute
(NDRI), a unit of the RAND Corporation.NDRI is a federally
funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the

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